Railroad vs Aviation

[casey]

What do you mean the slack is that the play in the couplings between cars

[True North]

What do you mean the slack is that the play in the couplings between cars

Correct.

And that is what you can hear sometimes when a train starts up or stops. If there is slack in the train when it starts you here a bang from each car as it starts to move, that is the slack coming out and you can hear it run right from the front all the way to the last car. Conversely, when a train stops, and I might be wrong about this part, if the engineer were to only use dynamic braking or locomotive brakes but no train brakes, then the cars would all pile into one another starting at the front and you would hear the slack going in all the way to the last car again.

[True North]

I shoul have explained the FTO better. You guessed correct, it has a hard time sometimes controlling speeds at parts of a sub. It never goes too fast it's always way under. what this does is ruin the "swing" as we call it and there is no way you are saving anything. Burning way more fuel and add time on the trip. The FTO can not control a train as well as a human can by a long shot. It is always allowing the slack to run in and out and that us very bad for a conductor at 2 in the morning when he has to change a knuckle a mile back because the it broke your train in half or more. I've seen the FTO rip a train in 4 chunks. It is getting better but is still needs a long way. It is mandatory to use FTO on units equipped with it and non compliance is punished with demerit points. We can get to sixty then fired! Driving a train is all about when to get on the gas and when to get off of it, old hoggers make it look so easy, but I'll assure you that there is lots going on. It's all mental and really mowing the lay of the land, it is really hard to see the grade as in my area they are very suddle. Once you have your subdivision memorized then it's time to learn how to run different kinds of trains..they are all different. The big long double stack container trains you see are usually the fast freights and are about the easiest to control because the weights on the cars for the most part are the same and the train in total us fairly light. A grain train or crude oil are classified as bulk trains and are big heavy pigs, swing is everything on these. These trains are fairly easy to run as well just heavy. The worst trains are the mixed train, with big weights all over the place. These are a little tricky and you need to be very carful with the slack, always try to keep it stretched. a good hogger does this, FTO can not. The very worst are the short heavy trains, like a ballast train. Mabe only 50 to 100 short cars long but can get away from a guy in a hurry if not paying attention. The longer trains things take more time to happen, shirt ones thing happen fast. Most trains cp runs are under 10000 feet. The hundred series will be right up there, grain and oil are usually 6500 feet or so and about 286 thousand pounds per car.

One thing about railroading that is still a little nerve racking is meeting a train at 60 mph at night. You can see the other guy for a long ways away and it always looks like he's on your track! Or running track speed through snow or fog, or some guys will shut the lights out. It takes time to get used to going 60 mph into absolutely zero vis.


Edit to add. The slack on a train can be up to 3 or 4 hundred feet!

Thanks for sharing that floatpilot. Personally I find this stuff fascinating.

[W5]

Very interesting! Always wondered about that stuff.

[floatpilot]

You can use the dynamic on it own, but are limited to the amount of horsepower you can use depending on the weights. You have to come off the throttle gradually then set up into dynamic and ease into it allowing the train to bunch up, once bunched then you can use what's available. You have to be careful using dynamic because you have to keep in mind what your train is doing behind, your head end may be going down hill, the middle may be up hill and the tail end is down. Very easy to rip appart. In the area I'm in we dont need to use the air brakes very often, mabe a heavy grain train once and a while. The air brakes on a train have 3 parts to them. Train brakes, locomotive, and emergency brakes. The brakes are applied with two leavers, one is called the automatic(train brakes) the other is the independent. When the hogger moves the leaver on the automatic he is setting the brake by making a reduction of air. When he makes the reduction he will bail the brakes off the unit by pushing the control to the side, thus letting the train slow the unit and not the unit causing brake action and bunching the slack. Brake systems on trains work the opposite of air brakes on trucks with the exception of the emergency resiviors. The air is pumped throught the train, average about 80 to 90 lbs will be at the tail end. There are gauges that show your resiviors,train line,and any flow. If you have low resiviors and high flow then there is a leak somewhere. The air pressure is holding the brakes off so when a reduction is ade by the hogger the brakes will apply. If there is a sudden drop in air pressure then the emergency brakes will apply, this sets all the brakes rapidly. If a train sits or a car for any period of time the resiviors will bleed off and the brakes will realese. In trucks the brakes will be set if there is no air. The brake system on railway cars is like this so you can move them around without always needing to do the hoses up, and for switching and kicking cars.

There is lots to know on how to use the brakes on a train, like I say in my parts we get away with using the dynamic or the lay of the land. I'm am certainly no expert as all my knowledge cones from sitting across the cab in the comfy conductors chair! I am soon to start my piglet traing, I think in the next month or 2. Within a few years I'll be a full time engineer here, the movement here with guys retiring is very fast. There will be 60 guys going in the next 5 years there must have been 20 since I started in 08 and there is 10 guys on pre retirement vacation right now, with a bunch more going over thus summer. Every guy that leaves is another rung up the seniority ladder. Some guys worked 25 years of spare board and layoffs before they got a good turn. I was hired in 08 trained for the winter and was ready to qualify as a conductor then our class and 3 a classes above us were laid off for 3.5 years! I went back to float flying. I got called back 2 years ago and have now been working full time since. I hold the pools from April till christmas time then spare board for the winter.

[Dash-Ate]

Youtube "suggested" this for me. I wonder how they knew...

What are the starting salaries like?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOac5bYqLRA

Day in the Life of a Conductor
.
CPCareersCPCareers·3 videos

[True North]

You can use the dynamic on it own, but are limited to the amount of horsepower you can use depending on the weights. You have to come off the throttle gradually then set up into dynamic and ease into it allowing the train to bunch up, once bunched then you can use what's available. You have to be careful using dynamic because you have to keep in mind what your train is doing behind, your head end may be going down hill, the middle may be up hill and the tail end is down. Very easy to rip appart. In the area I'm in we dont need to use the air brakes very often, mabe a heavy grain train once and a while. The air brakes on a train have 3 parts to them. Train brakes, locomotive, and emergency brakes. The brakes are applied with two leavers, one is called the automatic(train brakes) the other is the independent. When the hogger moves the leaver on the automatic he is setting the brake by making a reduction of air. When he makes the reduction he will bail the brakes off the unit by pushing the control to the side, thus letting the train slow the unit and not the unit causing brake action and bunching the slack. Brake systems on trains work the opposite of air brakes on trucks with the exception of the emergency resiviors. The air is pumped throught the train, average about 80 to 90 lbs will be at the tail end. There are gauges that show your resiviors,train line,and any flow. If you have low resiviors and high flow then there is a leak somewhere. The air pressure is holding the brakes off so when a reduction is ade by the hogger the brakes will apply. If there is a sudden drop in air pressure then the emergency brakes will apply, this sets all the brakes rapidly. If a train sits or a car for any period of time the resiviors will bleed off and the brakes will realese. In trucks the brakes will be set if there is no air. The brake system on railway cars is like this so you can move them around without always needing to do the hoses up, and for switching and kicking cars.

Okay. I think I'm ready for my interview!

[True North]

Something else I've been wondering about. When you are starting out and the train has the slack in, obviously you can't accelerate until all the slack is out. How do you know when the last car is moving? Does the end of train device on the last coupler send a signal to the cab?

[floatpilot]

If the unit has the FTO there is a display on the screen in front of the hogger that shows your train and the track profile that it's on. You can see the tail end move on that. Other than that when you "lift"a train it's all by feel. Most guys look out the side window at the ground when starting and stopping. You can feel the slack coming out as you start to pull. Once your moving, keep it in throttle 1 or 2 for till your sure the slack is out. The draw bars and knuckles were designed to make joints up to 4 mph so they can take a fair amount. The units have counters in them that we start when going over road crossings and places where we need to know where the tail end is.

Starting wage is 85% for 6 months. 90% for 6 months. 95% for 6 months...100% for a conductor is around 1.80 to 1.90 per mile. Guaranteed 3800 miles per month max. They set the pools up according to the traffic so a guy that's set up in the pool will make the miles per month. Spare board pays a little less then conductor as your on a brake mans wage. It's about 1.65/mile. There is a guarantee of 3400 miles paid if you work or not. It's a good deal. I guy can have another job and double dip!
You also get paid held away wich is when your at the away from home terminal at the bunk house and it starts after 10 hours and pays 12 and a half miles per hour. We also make money for switching and other things all based on hourly rates. A full time conductor working the pool and makes all his trips will take home about 2500 in 2 weeks. A hogger close to 3

[I_Drive_Planes]

Something else I've been wondering about. When you are starting out and the train has the slack in, obviously you can't accelerate until all the slack is out. How do you know when the last car is moving? Does the end of train device on the last coupler send a signal to the cab?

You got it. When I'm parked in a siding I can also tell when the train I'm meeting reaches my tail end because the ground vibration will tell me my tail end is moving when it is actually stationary.

[Meatservo]

What, the SBU sends a signal to the cab? That's news to me.

By the way, moderators thanks for not bleeping this thread. I've always liked railway equipment, ever since I read about Casey Jones when I was a little boy.

[Inverted2]

Great thread. Keep it going!

[floatpilot]

I can only speak for CP Rail, there is nothing on the tail end of the trains that I work on that tells us if we are moving. The sbu is only a device that senses the drop in air for application of setting the emergency brakes from the tail end forwards. There is a switch in the engine to activate it as well. I also forgot to mention that CP runs a lot of trains with power in the middle or tail end, you can tell when the unit starts to moveThese are called robots, they are hooked in series with the leader. They run a train very smoothly.

[I_Drive_Planes]

I can only speak for CP Rail, there is nothing on the tail end of the trains that I work on that tells us if we are moving. The sbu is only a device that senses the drop in air for application of setting the emergency brakes from the tail end forwards. There is a switch in the engine to activate it as well. I also forgot to mention that CP runs a lot of trains with power in the middle or tail end, you can tell when the unit starts to moveThese are called robots, they are hooked in series with the leader. They run a train very smoothly.

I've had occasion to run engines from a number of non CN railroads, including BCR, WC, IC, BNSF, UP, and CP. We get quite a bit of foreign power that runs through here. They are all pretty much the same (because all railways buy their equipment from the same very few suppliers that exist), and they all tell you if the tail end is moving. The newer computerized units (similar to EFIS in an airplane) have an indicator that comes on that says "EOT MOV" (end of train moving). On older units that have a separate IDU (the display unit that shows data from the end of train device) there is a light that says "MOV". On some of the really ancient IDUs there is simply a "+" sign that comes on the display when the tail end moves. This is really important information because, no matter how sensitive a butt you have, there is no way that you can tell if all of the slack is out of a 10000 foot train without some sort of indication.

In addition to indicating brake pipe pressure, end of train motion, and being able to place the train in emergency, the IDU also indicates the status of the rear marker light, gives a low battery alarm (most are now turbine powered, but some older units still require batteries), indicates emergency valve failure, and communication loss. It's quite a capable piece of equipment and one of the most referred to instruments in a locomotive cab.

[floatpilot]

I drive I was totally wrong! I did not know that the sbu had motion detector in it. Funny I had to learn this on an aviation web site!

[I_Drive_Planes]

I drive I was totally wrong! I did not know that the sbu had motion detector in it. Funny I had to learn this on an aviation web site!

Haha, they'll teach you all about it when you get to hog school